Source: John Stuart
Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (New York:
Harper
and Brothers, 1862), Chapter 18; etext version from Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5669. Italicized numbers and subtitles
in
square brackets have been provided by FWP.
Background: In *John
Stuart Mill: His Life and Works*, see especially the essay on *"His
Career in the India House"*

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

"Of the Government of Dependencies by a Free State"
(1862)

[1: Free states may have dependencies] Free states, like all
others, may possess dependencies, acquired either by conquest or by
colonization,
and our own is the greatest instance of the kind in modern history. It
is a most important question how such dependencies ought to be
governed.

[2: Small posts need not detain us] It is unnecessary to
discuss
the case of small posts, like Gibraltar, Aden, or Heligoland, which are
held only as naval or military positions. The military or naval object
is in this case paramount, and the inhabitants can not, consistently
with
it, be admitted to the government of the place, though they ought to be
allowed all liberties and privileges compatible with that restriction,
including the free management of municipal affairs, and, as a
compensation
for being locally sacrificed to the convenience of the governing state,
should be admitted to equal rights with its native subjects in all
other
parts of the empire.

[3: Large dependencies are of two classes] Outlying
territories
of some size and population, which are held as dependencies, that is,
which
are subject, more or less, to acts of sovereign power on the part of
the
paramount country, without being equally represented (if represented at
all) in its Legislature, may be divided into two classes. Some are
composed
of people of similar civilization to the ruling country, capable of,
and
ripe for, representative government, such as the British possessions in
America and Australia. Others, like India, are still at a great
distance
from that state.

[4: England now treates the first class of dependencies admirably]
In the case of dependencies of the former class, this country has at
length
realized, in rare completeness, the true principle of government.
England
has always felt under a certain degree of obligation to bestow on such
of her outlying populations as were of her own blood and language, and
on some who were not, representative institutions formed in imitation
of
her own; but, until the present generation, she has been on the same
bad
level with other countries as to the amount of self-government which
she
allowed them to exercise through the representative institutions that
she
conceded to them. She claimed to be the supreme arbiter even of their
purely
internal concerns, according to her own, not their ideas of how those
concerns
could be best regulated. This practice was a natural corollary from the
vicious theory of colonial policy–once common to all Europe, and not
yet
completely relinquished by any other people–which regarded colonies as
valuable by affording markets for our commodities that could be kept
entirely
to ourselves; a privilege we valued so highly that we thought it worth
purchasing by allowing to the colonies the same monopoly of our market
for their own productions which we claimed for our commodities in
theirs.
This notable plan for enriching them and ourselves by making each pay
enormous
sums to the other, dropping the greatest part by the way, has been for
some time abandoned. But the bad habit of meddling in the internal
government
of the colonies did not at once die out when we relinquished the idea
of
making any profit by it. We continued to torment them, not for any
benefit
to ourselves, but for that of a section or faction among the colonists;
and this persistence in domineering cost us a Canadian rebellion before
we had the happy thought of giving it up. England was like an ill
brought-up
elder brother, who persists in tyrannizing over the younger ones from
mere
habit, till one of them, by a spirited resistance, though with unequal
strength, gives him notice to desist. We were wise enough not to
require
a second warning. A new era in the colonial policy of nations began
with
Lord Durham's Report; the imperishable memorial of that nobleman's
courage,
patriotism, and enlightened liberality, and of the intellect and
practical
sagacity of its joint authors, Mr. Wakefield and the lamented Charles
Buller.

[5: Her European-race colonies now have the fullest internal
self-government]
It is now a fixed principle of the policy of Great Britain, professed
in
theory and faithfully adhered to in practice, that her colonies of
European
race, equally with the parent country, possess the fullest measure of
internal
self-government. They have been allowed to make their own free
representative
constitutions by altering in any manner they thought fit the already
very
popular constitutions which we had given them. Each is governed by its
own Legislature and executive, constituted on highly democratic
principles.
The veto of the crown and of Parliament, though nominally reserved, is
only exercised (and that very rarely) on questions which concern the
empire,
and not solely the particular colony. How liberal a construction has
been
given to the distinction between imperial and colonial questions is
shown
by the fact that the whole of the unappropriated lands in the regions
behind
our American and Australian colonies have been given up to the
uncontrolled
disposal of the colonial communities, though they might, without
injustice,
have been kept in the hands of the imperial government, to be
administered
for the greatest advantage of future emigrants from all parts of the
empire.
Every colony has thus as full power over its own affairs as it could
have
if it were a member of even the loosest federation, and much fuller
than
would belong to it under the Constitution of the United States, being
free
even to tax at its pleasure the commodities imported from the mother
country.
Their union with Great Britain is the slightest kind of federal union;
but not a strictly equal federation, the mother country retaining to
itself
the powers of a federal government, though reduced in practice to their
very narrowest limits. This inequality is, of course, as far as it
goes,
a disadvantage to the dependencies, which have no voice in foreign
policy,
but are bound by the decisions of the superior country. They are
compelled
to join England in war without being in any way consulted previous to
engaging
in it.

[6: Some reforms aim for even more radical kinds of equality]
Those (now happily not a few) who think that justice is as binding on
communities
as it is on individuals, and that men are not warranted in doing to
other
countries, for the supposed benefit of their own country, what they
would
not be justified in doing to other men for their own benefit, feel even
this limited amount of constitutional subordination on the part of the
colonies to be a violation of principle, and have often occupied
themselves
in looking out for means by which it may be avoided. With this view it
has been proposed by some that the colonies should return
representatives
to the British Legislature, and by others that the powers of our own,
as
well as of their Parliaments, should be confined to internal policy,
and
that there should be another representative body for foreign and
imperial
concerns, in which last the dependencies of Great Britain should be
represented
in the same manner, and with the same completeness as Great Britain
itself.
On this system there would be a perfectly equal federation between the
mother country and her colonies, then no longer dependencies.

[7: Some of their more extreme proposals are unfeasible] The
feelings of equity and conceptions of public morality from which these
suggestions emanate are worthy of all praise, but the suggestions
themselves
are so inconsistent with rational principles of government that it is
doubtful
if they have been seriously accepted as a possibility by any reasonable
thinker. Countries separated by half the globe do not present the
natural
conditions for being under one government, or even members of one
federation.
If they had sufficiently the same interests, they have not, and never
can
have, a sufficient habit of taking council together. They are not part
of the same public; they do not discuss and deliberate in the same
arena,
but apart, and have only a most imperfect knowledge of what passes in
the
minds of one another. They neither know each other's objects, nor have
confidence in each other's principles of conduct. Let any Englishman
ask
himself how he should like his destinies to depend on an assembly of
which
one third was British American, and another third South African and
Australian.
Yet to this it must come if there were any thing like fair or equal
representation;
and would not every one feel that the representatives of Canada and
Australia,
even in matters of an imperial character, could not know or feel any
sufficient
concern for the interests, opinions, or wishes of English, Irish, and
Scotch?
Even for strictly federative purposes the conditions do not exist which
we have seen to be essential to a federation. England is sufficient for
her own protection without the colonies, and would be in a much
stronger,
as well as more dignified position, if separated from them, than when
reduced
to be a single member of an American, African, and Australian
confederation.
Over and above the commerce which she might equally enjoy after
separation,
England derives little advantage, except in prestige, from her
dependencies,
and the little she does derive is quite outweighed by the expense they
cost her, and the dissemination they necessitate of her naval and
military
force, which, in case of war, or any real apprehension of it, requires
to be double or treble what would be needed for the defense of this
country
alone.

[8: Even after independence, some slight bond of connection
should
be maintained] But, though Great Britain could do perfectly well
without
her colonies, and though, on every principle of morality and justice,
she
ought to consent to their separation, should the time come when, after
full trial of the best form of union, they deliberately desire to be
dissevered,
there are strong reasons for maintaining the present slight bond of
connection
so long as not disagreeable to the feelings of either party. It is a
step,
as far as it goes, towards universal peace and general friendly
co-operation
among nations. It renders war impossible among a large number of
otherwise
independent communities, and, moreover, hinders any of them from being
absorbed into a foreign state, and becoming a source of additional
aggressive
strength to some rival power, either more despotic or closer at hand,
which
might not always be so unambitious or so pacific as Great Britain. It
at
least keeps the markets of the different countries open to one another,
and prevents that mutual exclusion by hostile tariffs which none of the
great communities of mankind except England have yet outgrown. And in
the
case of the British possessions it has the advantage, especially
valuable
at the present time, of adding to the moral influence and weight in the
councils of the world of the power which, of all in existence, best
understands
liberty–and, whatever may have been its errors in the past, has
attained
to more of conscience and moral principle in its dealings with
foreigners
than any other great nation seems either to conceive as possible or
recognize
as desirable. Since, then, the union can only continue, while it does
continue,
on the footing of an unequal federation, it is important to consider by
what means this small amount of inequality can be prevented from being
either onerous or humiliating to the communities occupying the less
exalted
position.

[9: The mother country should make equitable dispositions in both
peace and war] The only inferiority necessarily inherent in the
case
is that the mother country decides, both for the colonies and for
herself,
on questions of peace and war. They gain, in return, the obligation on
the mother country to repel aggressions directed against them; but,
except
when the minor community is so weak that the protection of a stronger
power
is indispensable to it, reciprocity of obligation is not a full
equivalent
for non-admission to a voice in the deliberations. It is essential,
therefore,
that in all wars, save those which, like the Caffre or New Zealand
wars,
are incurred for the sake of the particular colony, the colonists
should
not (without their own voluntary request) be called on to contribute
any
thing to the expense except what may be required for the specific local
defense of their ports, shores, and frontiers against invasion.
Moreover,
as the mother country claims the privilege, at her sole discretion, of
taking measures or pursuing a policy which may expose them to attack,
it
is just that she should undertake a considerable portion of the cost of
their military defense even in time of peace; the whole of it, so far
as
it depends upon a standing army.

[10: All positions in the mother country should be open to the
colonials
too] But there is a means, still more effectual than these, by
which,
and in general by which alone, a full equivalent can be given to a
smaller
community for sinking its individuality, as a substantive power among
nations,
in the greater individuality of a wide and powerful empire. This one
indispensable,
and, at the same time, sufficient expedient, which meets at once the
demands
of justice and the growing exigencies of policy, is to open the service
of government in all its departments, and in every part of the empire,
on perfectly equal terms, to the inhabitants of the colonies. Why does
no one ever hear a breath of disloyalty from the Islands in the British
Channel? By race, religion, and geographical position they belong less
to England than to France; but, while they enjoy, like Canada and New
South
Wales, complete control over their internal affairs and their taxation,
every office or dignity in the gift of the crown is freely open to the
native of Guernsey or Jersey. Generals, admirals, peers of the United
Kingdom
are made, and there is nothing which hinders prime ministers to be made
from those insignificant islands. The same system was commenced in
reference
to the colonies generally by an enlightened colonial secretary, too
early
lost, Sir William Molesworth, when he appointed Mr. Hinckes, a leading
Canadian politician, to a West Indian government. It is a very shallow
view of the springs of political action in a community which thinks
such
things unimportant because the number of those in a position actually
to
profit by the concession might not be very considerable. That limited
number
would be composed precisely of those who have most moral power over the
rest; and men are not so destitute of the sense of collective
degradation
as not to feel the withholding of an advantage from even one person,
because
of a circumstance which they all have in common with him, an affront to
all. If we prevent the leading men of a community from standing forth
to
the world as its chiefs and representatives in the general councils of
mankind, we owe it both to their legitimate ambition and to the just
pride
of the community to give them in return an equal chance of occupying
the
same prominent position in a nation of greater power and importance.
Were
the whole service of the British crown opened to the natives of the
Ionian
Islands, we should hear no more of the desire for union with Greece.
Such
a union is not desirable for the people, to whom it would be a step
backward
in civilization; but it is no wonder if Corfu, which has given a
minister
of European reputation to the Russian Empire, and a president to Greece
itself before the arrival of the Bavarians, should feel it a grievance
that its people are not admissable to the highest posts in some
government
or other.

[11: Dependencies of the second class should be offered a good
despotism]
Thus far of the dependencies whose population is in a sufficiently
advanced
state to be fitted for representative government; but there are others
which have not attained that state, and which, if held at all, must be
governed by the dominant country, or by persons delegated for that
purpose
by it. This mode of government is as legitimate as any other, if it is
the one which in the existing state of civilization of the subject
people
most facilitates their transition to a higher stage of improvement.
There
are, as we have already seen, conditions of society in which a vigorous
despotism is in itself the best mode of government for training the
people
in what is specifically wanting to render them capable of a higher
civilization.
There are others, in which the mere fact of despotism has indeed no
beneficial
effect, the lessons which it teaches having already been only too
completely
learned, but in which, there being no spring of spontaneous improvement
in the people themselves, their almost only hope of making any steps in
advance depends on the chances of a good despot. Under a native
despotism,
a good despot is a rare and transitory accident; but when the dominion
they are under is that of a more civilized people, that people ought to
be able to supply it constantly. The ruling country ought to be able to
do for its subjects all that could be done by a succession of absolute
monarchs, guaranteed by irresistible force against the precariousness
of
tenure attendant on barbarous despotisms, and qualified by their genius
to anticipate all that experience has taught to the more advanced
nation.
Such is the ideal rule of a free people over a barbarous or
semi-barbarous
one. We need not expect to see that ideal realized; but, unless some
approach
to it is, the rulers are guilty of a dereliction of the highest moral
trust
which can devolve upon a nation; and if they do not even aim at it,
they
are selfish usurpers, on a par in criminality with any of those whose
ambition
and rapacity have sported from age to age with the destiny of masses of
mankind.

[12: The provision of such a good despotism is a
poorly-understood
problem] As it is already a common, and is rapidly tending to
become
the universal, condition of the more backward populations to be either
held in direct subjection by the more advanced, or to be under their
complete
political ascendancy, there are in this age of the world few more
important
problems than how to organize this rule, so as to make it a good
instead
of an evil to the subject people, providing them with the best
attainable
present government, and with the conditions most favorable to future
permanent
improvement. But the mode of fitting the government for this purpose is
by no means so well understood as the conditions of good government in
a people capable of governing themselves. We may even say that it is
not
understood at all.

[13: The superficially obvious solutions to this problem do not
work]
The thing appears perfectly easy to superficial observers. If India
(for
example) is not fit to govern itself, all that seems to them required
is
that there should be a minister to govern it, and that this minister,
like
all other British ministers, should be responsible to the British
Parliament.
Unfortunately this, though the simplest mode of attempting to govern a
dependency, is about the worst, and betrays in its advocates a total
want
of comprehension of the conditions of good government. To govern a
country
under responsibility to the people of that country, and to govern one
country
under responsibility to the people of another, are two very different
things.
What makes the excellence of the first is, that freedom is preferable
to
despotism: but the last is despotism. The only choice the case admits
is
a choice of despotisms, and it is not certain that the despotism of
twenty
millions is necessarily better than that of a few or of one; but it is
quite certain that the despotism of those who neither hear, nor see,
nor
know any thing about their subjects, has many chances of being worse
than
that of those who do. It is not usually thought that the immediate
agents
of authority govern better because they govern in the name of an absent
master, and of one who has a thousand more pressing interests to attend
to. The master may hold them to a strict responsibility, enforced by
heavy
penalties, but it is very questionable if those penalties will often
fall
in the right place.

[14: For a country to be governed by foreigners is very difficult
at best] It is always under great difficulties, and very
imperfectly,
that a country can be governed by foreigners, even when there is no
extreme
disparity in habits and ideas between the rulers and the ruled.
Foreigners
do not feel with the people. They can not judge, by the light in which
a thing appears to their own minds, or the manner in which it affects
their
feelings, how it will affect the feelings or appear to the minds of the
subject population. What a native of the country, of average practical
ability, knows as it were by instinct, they have to learn slowly, and,
after all, imperfectly, by study and experience. The laws, the customs,
the social relations for which they have to legislate, instead of being
familiar to them from childhood, are all strange to them. For most of
their
detailed knowledge they must depend on the information of natives, and
it is difficult for them to know whom to trust. They are feared,
suspected,
probably disliked by the population; seldom sought by them except for
interested
purposes; and they are prone to think that the servilely submissive are
the trustworthy. Their danger is of despising the natives; that of the
natives is, of disbelieving that any thing the strangers do can be
intended
for their good. These are but a part of the difficulties that any
rulers
have to struggle with, who honestly attempt to govern well a country in
which they are foreigners. To overcome these difficulties in any degree
will always be a work of much labor, requiring a very superior degree
of
capacity in the chief administrators, and a high average among the
subordinates;
and the best organization of such a government is that which will best
insure the labor, develop the capacity, and place the highest specimens
of it in the situations of greatest trust. Responsibility to an
authority
which has gone through none of the labor, acquired none of the
capacity,
and for the most part is not even aware that either, in any peculiar
degree,
is required, can not be regarded as a very effectual expedient for
accomplishing
these ends.

[15: For one people to govern another people is impossible]
The
government of a people by itself has a meaning and a reality, but such
a thing as government of one people by another does not and can not
exist.
One people may keep another as a warren or preserve for its own use, a
place to make money in, a human-cattle farm to be worked for the profit
of its own inhabitants; but if the good of the governed is the proper
business
of a government, it is utterly impossible that a people should directly
attend to it. The utmost they can do is to give some of their best men
a commission to look after it, to whom the opinion of their own country
can neither be much of a guide in the performance of their duty, nor a
competent judge of the mode in which it has been performed. Let any one
consider how the English themselves would be governed if they knew and
cared no more about their own affairs than they know and care about the
affairs of the Hindoos. Even this comparison gives no adequate idea of
the state of the case; for a people thus indifferent to politics
altogether
would probably be simply acquiescent, and let the government alone;
whereas
in the case of India, a politically active people like the English,
amid
habitual acquiescence, are every now and then interfering, and almost
always
in the wrong place. The real causes which determine the prosperity or
wretchedness,
the improvement or deterioration of the Hindoos, are too far off to be
within their ken. They have not the knowledge necessary for suspecting
the existence of those causes, much less for judging of their
operation.
The most essential interests of the country may be well administered
without
obtaining any of their approbation, or mismanaged to almost any excess
without attracting their notice. The purposes for which they are
principally
tempted to interfere, and control the proceedings of their delegates,
are
of two kinds. One is to force English ideas down the throats of the
natives;
for instance, by measures of proselytism, or acts intentionally or
unintentionally
offensive to the religious feelings of the people. This misdirection of
opinion in the ruling country is instructively exemplified (the more
so,
because nothing is meant but justice and fairness, and as much
impartiality
as can be expected from persons really convinced) by the demand now so
general in England for having the Bible taught, at the option of pupils
or of their parents, in the government schools. From the European point
of view nothing can wear a fairer aspect, or seem less open to
objection
on the score of religious freedom. To Asiatic eyes it is quite another
thing. No Asiatic people ever believes that a government puts its paid
officers and official machinery into motion unless it is bent upon an
object;
and when bent on an object, no Asiatic believes that any government,
except
a feeble and contemptible one, pursues it by halves. If government
schools
and schoolmasters taught Christianity, whatever pledges might be given
of teaching it only to those who spontaneously sought it, no amount of
evidence would ever persuade the parents that improper means were not
used
to make their children Christians, or, at all events, outcasts from
Hindooism.
If they could, in the end, be convinced of the contrary, it would only
be by the entire failure of the schools, so conducted, to make any
converts.
If the teaching had the smallest effect in promoting its object, it
would
compromise not only the utility and even existence of the government
education,
but perhaps the safety of the government itself. An English Protestant
would not be easily induced, by disclaimers of proselytism, to place
his
children in a Roman Catholic seminary; Irish Catholics will not send
their
children to schools in which they can be made Protestants; and we
expect
that Hindoos, who believe that the privileges of Hindooism can be
forfeited
by a merely physical act, will expose theirs to the danger of being
made
Christians!

[16: Settlers from the mother country are bound to wield an
excessive
and selfish power] Such is one of the modes in which the opinion of
the dominant country tends to act more injuriously than beneficially on
the conduct of its deputed governors. In other respects, its
interference
is likely to be oftenest exercised where it will be most pertinaciously
demanded, and that is, on behalf of some interest of the English
settlers.
English settlers have friends at home, have organs, have access to the
public; they have a common language, and common ideas with their
countrymen;
any complaint by an Englishman is more sympathetically heard, even if
no
unjust preference is intentionally accorded to it. Now if there be a
fact
to which all experience testifies, it is that, when a country holds
another
in subjection, the individuals of the ruling people who resort to the
foreign
country to make their fortunes are of all others those who most need to
be held under powerful restraint. They are always one of the chief
difficulties
of the government. Armed with the prestige and filled with the scornful
overbearingness of the conquering nation, they have the feelings
inspired
by absolute power without its sense of responsibility. Among a people
like
that of India, the utmost efforts of the public authorities are not
enough
for the effectual protection of the weak against the strong; and of all
the strong, the European settlers are the strongest. Wherever the
demoralizing
effect of the situation is not in a most remarkable degree corrected by
the personal character of the individual, they think the people of the
country mere dirt under their feet: it seems to them monstrous that any
rights of the natives should stand in the way of their smallest
pretensions;
the simplest act of protection to the inhabitants against any act of
power
on their part which they may consider useful to their commercial
objects
they denounce, and sincerely regard as an injury. So natural is this
state
of feeling in a situation like theirs, that, even under the
discouragement
which it has hitherto met with from the ruling authorities, it is
impossible
that more or less of the spirit should not perpetually break out. The
government,
itself free from this spirit, is never able sufficiently to keep it
down
in the young and raw even of its own civil and military officers, over
whom it has so much more control than over the independent residents.
As
it is with the English in India, so, according to trustworthy
testimony,
it is with the French in Algiers; so with the Americans in the
countries
conquered from Mexico; so it seems to be with the Europeans in China,
and
already even in Japan: there is no necessity to recall how it was with
the Spaniards in South America. In all these cases, the government to
which
these private adventurers are subject is better than they, and does the
most it can to protect the natives against them. Even the Spanish
government
did this, sincerely and earnestly, though ineffectually, as is known to
every reader of Mr. Helps' instructive history. Had the Spanish
government
been directly accountable to Spanish opinion, we may question if it
would
have made the attempt, for the Spaniards, doubtless, would have taken
part
with their Christian friends and relations rather than with pagans. The
settlers, not the natives, have the ear of the public at home; it is
they
whose representations are likely to pass for truth, because they alone
have both the means and the motive to press them perseveringly upon the
inattentive and uninterested public mind. The distrustful criticism
with
which Englishmen, more than any other people, are in the habit of
scanning
the conduct of their country towards foreigners, they usually reserve
for
the proceedings of the public authorities. In all questions between a
government
and an individual, the presumption in every Englishman's mind is that
the
government is in the wrong. And when the resident English bring the
batteries
of English political action to bear upon any of the bulwarks erected to
protect the natives against their encroachments, the executive, with
their
real but faint velleities of something better, generally find it safer
to their Parliamentary interest, and, at any rate, less troublesome, to
give up the disputed position than to defend it.

[17: Colonial elites too wield unjust amounts of power] What
makes matters worse is that, when the public mind is invoked (as, to
its
credit, the English mind is extremely open to be) in the name of
justice
and philanthropy in behalf of the subject community or race, there is
the
same probability of its missing the mark; for in the subject community
also there are oppressors and oppressed–powerful individuals or
classes,
and slaves prostrate before them; and it is the former, not the latter,
who have the means of access to the English public. A tyrant or
sensualist
who has been deprived of the power he had abused, and, instead of
punishment,
is supported in as great wealth and splendor as he ever enjoyed; a knot
of privileged landholders, who demand that the state should relinquish
to them its reserved right to a rent from their lands, or who resent as
a wrong any attempt to protect the masses from their extortion–these
have
no difficulty in procuring interested or sentimental advocacy in the
British
Parliament and press. The silent myriads obtain none.

[18: Without the check of responsibility to the governed,
government
is ill-grounded] The preceding observations exemplify the operation
of a principle–which might be called an obvious one, were it not that
scarcely
anybody seems to be aware of it–that, while responsibility to the
governed
is the greatest of all securities for good government, responsibility
to
somebody else not only has no such tendency, but is as likely to
produce
evil as good. The responsibility of the British rulers of India to the
British nation is chiefly useful because, when any acts of the
government
are called in question, it insures publicity and discussion; the
utility
of which does not require that the public at large should comprehend
the
point at issue, provided there are any individuals among them who do;
for
a merely moral responsibility not being responsibility to the
collective
people, but to every separate person among them who forms a judgment,
opinions
may be weighed as well as counted, and the approbation or
disapprobation
of one person well versed in the subject may outweigh that of thousands
who know nothing about it at all. It is doubtless a useful restraint
upon
the immediate rulers that they can be put upon their defense, and that
one or two of the jury will form an opinion worth having about their
conduct,
though that of the remainder will probably be several degrees worse
than
none. Such as it is, this is the amount of benefit to India from the
control
exercised over the Indian government by the British Parliament and
people.

[19: Thus the need for an ongoing 'good despotism'] It is not
by attempting to rule directly a country like India, but by giving it
good
rulers, that the English people can do their duty to that country; and
they can scarcely give it a worse one than an English cabinet minister,
who is thinking of English, not Indian politics; who does not remains
long
enough in office to acquire an intelligent interest in so complicated a
subject; upon whom the factitious public opinion got up in Parliament,
consisting of two or three fluent speakers, acts with as much force as
if it were genuine; while he is under none of the influences of
training
and position which would lead or qualify him to form an honest opinion
of his own. A free country which attempts to govern a distant
dependency,
inhabited by a dissimilar people, by means of a branch of its own
executive,
will almost inevitably fail. The only mode which has any chance of
tolerable
success is to govern through a delegated body of a comparatively
permanent
character, allowing only a right of inspection and a negative voice to
the changeable administration of the state. Such a body did exist in
the
case of India; and I fear that both India and England will pay a severe
penalty for the shortsighted policy by which this intermediate
instrument
of government was done away with.

[20: It is the least imperfect of the available choices] It
is
of no avail to say that such a delegated body can not have all the
requisites
of good government; above all, can not have that complete and
over-operative
identity of interest with the governed which it is so difficult to
obtain
even where the people to be ruled are in some degree qualified to look
after their own affairs. Real good government is not compatible with
the
conditions of the case. There is but a choice of imperfections. The
problem
is, so to construct the governing body that, under the difficulties of
the position, it shall have as much interest as possible in good
government,
and as little in bad. Now these conditions are best found in an
intermediate
body. A delegated administration has always this advantage over a
direct
one, that it has, at all events, no duty to perform except to the
governed.
It has no interests to consider except theirs. Its own power of
deriving
profit from misgovernment may be reduced–in the latest Constitution of
the East India Company it was reduced–to a singularly small amount; and
it can be kept entirely clear of bias from the individual or class
interests
of any one else. When the home government and Parliament are swayed by
such partial influences in the exercise of the power reserved to them
in
the last resort, the intermediate body is the certain advocate and
champion
of the dependency before the imperial tribunal. The intermediate body,
moreover, is, in the natural course of things, chiefly composed of
persons
who have acquired professional knowledge of this part of their
country's
concerns; who have been trained to it in the place itself, and have
made
its administration the main occupation of their lives. Furnished with
these
qualifications, and not being liable to lose their office from the
accidents
of home politics, they identify their character and consideration with
their special trust, and have a much more permanent interest in the
success
of their administration, and in the prosperity of the country which
they
administer, than a member of a cabinet under a representative
constitution
can possibly have in the good government of any country except the one
which he serves. So far as the choice of those who carry on the
management
on the spot devolves upon this body, their appointment is kept out of
the
vortex of party and Parliamentary jobbing, and freed from the influence
of those motives to the abuse of patronage for the reward of adherents,
or to buy off those who would otherwise be opponents, which are always
stronger with statesmen of average honesty than a conscientious sense
of
the duty of appointing the fittest man. To put this one class of
appointments
as far as possible out of harm's way is of more consequence than the
worst
which can happen to all other offices in the state; for, in every other
department, if the officer is unqualified, the general opinion of the
community
directs him in a certain degree what to do; but in the position of the
administrators of a dependency where the people are not fit to have the
control in their own hands, the character of the government entirely
depends
on the qualifications, moral and intellectual, of the individual
functionaries.

[21: Everything depends on the personal qualities and capacities
of the agents of government] It can not be too often repeated that,
in a country like India, everything depends on the personal qualities
and
capacities of the agents of government. This truth is the cardinal
principle
of Indian administration. The day when it comes to be thought that the
appointment of persons to situations of trust from motives of
convenience,
already so criminal in England, can be practiced with impunity in
India,
will be the beginning of the decline and fall of our empire there. Even
with a sincere intention of preferring the best candidate, it will not
do to rely on chance for supplying fit persons. The system must be
calculated
to form them. It has done this hitherto; and because it has done so,
our
rule in India has lasted, and been one of constant, if not very rapid
improvement
in prosperity and good administration. As much bitterness is now
manifested
against this system, and as much eagerness displayed to overthrow it,
as
if educating and training the officers of government for their work
were
a thing utterly unreasonable and indefensible, an unjustifiable
interference
with the rights of ignorance and inexperience. There is a tacit
conspiracy
between those who would like to job in first-rate Indian offices for
their
connections here, and those who, being already in India, claim to be
promoted
from the indigo factory or the attorney's office to administer justice
or fix the payments due to government from millions of people. The
"monopoly"
of the civil service, so much inveighed against, is like the monopoly
of
judicial offices by the bar; and its abolition would be like opening
the
bench in Westminster Hall to the first comer whose friends certify that
he has now and then looked into Blackstone. Were the course ever
adopted
of sending men from this country, or encouraging them in going out, to
get themselves put into high appointments without having learned their
business by passing through the lower ones, the most important offices
would be thrown to Scotch cousins and adventurers, connected by no
professional
feeling with the country or the work, held to no previous knowledge,
and
eager only to make money rapidly and return home. The safety of the
country
is, that those by whom it is administered be sent out in youth, as
candidates
only, to begin at the bottom of the ladder, and ascend higher or not,
as,
after a proper interval, they are proved qualified. The defect of the
East
India Company's system was that, though the best men were carefully
sought
out for the most important posts, yet, if an officer remained in the
service,
promotion, though it might be delayed, came at last in some shape or
other,
to the least as well as to the most competent. Even the inferior in
qualifications
among such a corps of functionaries consisted, it must be remembered,
of
men who had been brought up to their duties, and had fulfilled them for
many years, at lowest without disgrace, under the eye and authority of
a superior. But, though this diminished the evil, it was nevertheless
considerable.
A man who never becomes fit for more than an assistant's duty should
remain
an assistant all his life, and his juniors should be promoted over him.
With this exception, I am not aware of any real defect in the old
system
of Indian appointments. It had already received the greatest other
improvement
it was susceptible of, the choice of the original candidates by
competitive
examination, which, besides the advantage of recruiting from a higher
grade
of industry and capacity, has the recommendation that under it, unless
by accident, there are no personal ties between the candidates for
offices
and those who have a voice in conferring them.

[22: The Viceroy should be of a different class, and differently
chosen, from his subordinates] It is in no way unjust that public
officers
thus selected and trained should be exclusively eligible to offices
which
require specially Indian knowledge and experience. If any door to the
higher
appointments, without passing through the lower, be opened even for
occasional
use, there will be such incessant knocking at it by persons of
influence
that it will be impossible ever to keep it closed. The only excepted
appointment
should be the highest one of all. The Viceroy of British India should
be
a person selected from all Englishmen for his great general capacity
for
government. If he have this, he will be able to distinguish in others,
and turn to his own use, that special knowledge and judgment in local
affairs
which he has not himself had the opportunity of acquiring. There are
good
reasons why the viceroy should not be a member of the regular service.
All services have, more or less, their class prejudices, from which the
supreme ruler ought to be exempt. Neither are men, however able and
experienced,
who have passed their lives in Asia, so likely to possess the most
advanced
European ideas in general statesmanship, which the chief ruler should
carry
out with him, and blend with the results of Indian experience. Again,
being
of a different class, and especially if chosen by a different
authority,
he will seldom have any personal partialities to warp his appointments
to office. This great security for honest bestowal of patronage existed
in rare perfection under the mixed government of the crown and the East
India Company. The supreme dispensers of office–the governor general
and
governors–were appointed, in fact though not formally, by the crown,
that
is, by the general government, not by the intermediate body, and a
great
officer of the crown probably had not a single personal or political
connection
in the local service, while the delegated body, most of whom had
themselves
served in the country, had, and were likely to have, such connections.
This guaranty for impartiality would be much impaired if the civil
servants
of government, even though sent out in boyhood as mere candidates for
employment,
should come to be furnished, in any considerable proportion, by the
class
of society which supplies viceroys and governors. Even the initiatory
competitive
examination would then be an insufficient security. It would exclude
mere
ignorance and incapacity; it would compel youths of family to start in
the race with the same amount of instruction and ability as other
people;
the stupidest son could not be put into the Indian service, as he can
be
into the Church; but there would be nothing to prevent undue preference
afterwards. No longer, all equally unknown and unheard of by the
arbiter
of their lot, a portion of the service would be personally, and a still
greater number politically, in close relation with him. Members of
certain
families, and of the higher classes and influential connections
generally,
would rise more rapidly than their competitors, and be often kept in
situations
for which they were unfit, or placed in those for which others were
fitter.
The same influences would be brought into play which affect promotions
in the army; and those alone, if such miracles of simplicity there be,
who believe that these are impartial, would expect impartiality in
those
of India. This evil is, I fear, irremediable by any general measures
which
can be taken under the present system. No such will afford a degree of
security comparable to that which once flowed spontaneously from the
so-called
double government.

[23: The abolition of the East India Company will one day be seen
as a sad mistake] What is accounted so great an advantage in the
case
of the English system of government at home has been its misfortune in
India–that it grew up of itself, not from preconceived design, but by
successive
expedients, and by the adaptation of machinery originally created for a
different purpose. As the country on which its maintenance depended was
not the one out of whose necessities it grew, its practical benefits
did
not come home to the mind of that country, and it would have required
theoretic
recommendations to render it acceptable. Unfortunately, these were
exactly
what it seemed to be destitute of; and undoubtedly the common theories
of government did not furnish it with such, framed as those theories
have
been for states of circumstances differing in all the most important
features
from the case concerned. But in government as in other departments of
human
agency, almost all principles which have been durable were first
suggested
by observation of some particular case, in which the general laws of
nature
acted in some new or previously unnoticed combination of circumstances.
The institutions of Great Britain, and those of the United States, have
the distinction of suggesting most of the theories of government which,
through good and evil fortune, are now, in the course of generations,
reawakening
political life in the nations of Europe. It has been the destiny of the
government of the East India Company to suggest the true theory of the
government of a semi-barbarous dependency by a civilized country, and
after
having done this, to perish. It would be a singular fortune if, at the
end
of two or three more generations, this speculative result should be the
only remaining fruit of our ascendancy in India; if posterity should
say
of us that, having stumbled accidentally upon better arrangements than
our wisdom would ever have devised, the first use we made of our
awakened
reason was to destroy them, and allow the good which had been in course
of being realized to fall through and be lost from ignorance of the
principles
on which it depended. Dî meliora; but if a fate so disgraceful to
England and to civilization can be averted, it must be through far
wider
political conceptions than merely English or European practice can
supply,
and through a much more profound study of Indian experience and of the
conditions of Indian government than either English politicians, or
those
who supply the English public with opinions, have hitherto shown any
willingness
to undertake.